That is, the stuff I install on a new Windows PC. Since I need this list several times a year, why not make a blog post of it. As you will see,I have a more than average interest in video (conversion) and sysadmin (SSH/FTP). The links typically go straight to the download page.
Audio/video
- iTunes (+Quicktime): excellent music manager and it rips to MP3 really fast
- CDBurnerXP: for burning CDs, DVDs, ISO files
- Irfanview: image viewer, editor and converter – for people who think Photoshop is overkill
- Picasa: photograph workflow & archive manager (from Google)
- VLC Player: ultimate video player, very complete set of codecs
- ffmpeg with a GUI like GVC: video conversion: AVI, MOV, MPG, MP4, …
- Handbrake: will make a good MPEG4 of any DVD in one go
Internet
- Skype: for chat, phonecalls and SMSes with people far away
- Chrome, Firefox or Opera browser – personally I like Firefox less. Opera is solid and fast, Google Chrome is an interesting new kid on the block.
- FileZilla: FTP client
- Putty: SSH and telnet terminal
- EditPlus: customisable editor for text, HTML, CMD … that also works over FTP
- uTorrent: because sometimes you need to … get stuff, you know
Tools
- Google Pack: contains Picasa, Skype, Google Toolbar and a whole bunch of other useful programs
- Adobe PDF reader: for reading PDF documents, and everything is in PDF these days
- 7-Zip: compression/expansion of ZIP, RAR and 7z archives
- CutePDF with GhostScript: printing to a PDF file (also allows converting a PostScript PS/EPS file to PDF)
- UnixUtils: I’m a sucker for GAWK and WGET
- Nokia PCSuite: for synchro with my Nokia N91 (yes, it’s still my phone!)
- XAMPP: for developing with Apache/PERL/PHP/MySQL on Windows
I was thinking about this the other day. Piracy is really big for CDs and DVDs. One of the main reasons is that both media are so easy to digitize. Pop in a CD and in 6 minutes you have everything in MP3 files. Converting a DVD to XVID takes a bit longer and is slightly more complex, but not that much. Once they’re (unprotected) files, you can swap away. But books, we’ve always bought them in analog, paper form. Digitalizing meant scanning them, and that was just too much work.
Now that’s changing. Amazon is selling digital books on their Kindle device (240.000 devices sold in Aug 2008, 12% of books offered in both digital & analog are sold digital), Sony has a digital book reader (the PRS-505-SC), iRex has the iLiad. There will be more and more books available in digital format, and those will inevitably become a target for piracy.
The Kindle has its own AZW digital eBook format, but this is probably derived from the Mobipocket MOBI/PRC format. Mobipocket was taken over by Amazon in 2005. AZW/PRC support DRM (Digital Rights Management – a.k.a. you can’t read it unless I allow you to) for eBooks. Sony has its own (of course) format which is called BBeB (Broadband eBook), which also has DRM. Most readers also read PDF files.
My guess is, that as more books are being offered in digital format, there will be an increased interest in the DRM secuirty behind the file formats, and hackers will find ways to convert full books to an unencrypted format. This might be PDF or PRC/MOBI. And these files will be exchanged in the same way as we some people exchange music and movies. You will have a tab “eBooks” on thepiratebay, and youngsters will say “I have all Steven King’s books – downloaded of course, duh!” My guess is also that publishers will start blaming Amazon, and start suing their own customers, like the RIAA and MPAA are still doing. And it will take years for them to figure out that DRM is not a good thing, that it is possible to make money by selling things that can be copied. And they’ll probably arrive at conclusions that Seth Godin has been talking about for years already now.
Fleshmap via Infosthetics
If you ever wanted proof that hip-hop & rap are a disruptive music genre, take a look at this study/art work by Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattenberg & the crowdsourcing specialists at Dolores Labs: Fleshlabs.
They’ve take the lyrics of a lot of songs and figured out which body parts are most mentioned.
Based on a compilation of more than 10,000 songs, the piece visualizes the use of words representing body parts in popular culture. Each musical genre exhibits its own characteristic set of words, with more frequently used terms showing up as bigger images. The entrance image shows how many times different body parts are mentioned; the charts for each genre go into more detail, showing the usage of different synonyms for each part.
Continue reading ‘Hip-hop is different’
For reasons I won’t disclose, I’ve had the following song in my head for quite a while now: “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band (1974). For me the funny thing is the contrast between the innocuous country-music image of the band (with the really pretty Margot Chapman – born in Hawai) and the lyrics of the song that are a bit, let’s say, suggestive.
Continue reading ‘Afternoon delight’
This Intelligence Test was fun to do, and I got stuck at 23, without Googling or reverse-engineering the JS code. Then of course, somebody decided to comment on the NoDesktopHero post with spoilers. So yeah, no point in continuing.
I’m getting old, I guess. This ad campaign annoys me. For those who don’t understand Dutch: if you take a Dodge Journey for a test-drive on the Father’s Day weekend, and make a baby on the back seat, then you have a chance of winning a car.
First off: it’s borderline immoral. There can be several reasons to have children, but winning a car shouldn’t be a motivation. Having children is quite a big thing. To make it into a gamble with a prize, feels wrong.
Secondly: the logistics. I can imagine they won’t require the couples to stay in the showroom with the car to perform the act, but where do you park? Side of the road? Public parking? In the garage at home? You’d need to live close enough to a garage. And what about the activities that happened in the car before you entered? What’s that smell? Is that a … on the backseat? OMG! Never mind, baby, we only have an hour, hurry! Close your eyes and think of off-road adventures.
And then the criterium for winning: the baby that’s closest to 8 March 2009 wins. I can imagine some future parents instructing their gynaecologist to have the birth on exactly that date. There’s a possibility for a 20K euro car, so if the baby has to come prematurely, then that’s just how it’s gotta be. And if you have 3 babies born on 8 March, that’s all equally ‘close’, right? Who will be chosen? The one that was born the closest to 12AM? (”Nurse, can, you change that hour of birth? Like one hour later, say 11.53AM?“)
For me this is a campaign thought out on the back of a napkin after a bit too much of alcohol. It should have stayed on that napkin.
Recent Comments